Colors have faded

[rick s]

Hello Everyone,

All of my orange/orange and green/orange zoas have faded in color. They looked brilliant for over a year, and then slowly faded to dull. Of course, quite a few things have changed over time but I can't nail it down as to what I may have done to make them fade.

My blue zoas, turquoise zoas, and other greenish-yellow zoas have all stayed nice and bright. All my other corals look great.

Is it possible that these have just changed over time on their own or is there something I'm doing to cause these colors only to fade?

All my water parameters are decent. The colors in the pics are accurate. This is how they use to look-and do look today.

Pics from the past:

Now:

 

[JGoslee]

What kind of lighting do you have them under?

 

[msman825]

could be your bulbs are bad, are broke

 

[rick s]

It's not the bulbs. Dual, 175 watt metal halides, 1-40 watt 50/50 and 1-40 watt actinic. They have all been replaced.

 

[AVALover5498]

What K are the bulbs? Also, Did you aclimate them to the new bulbs?

-Chris-

 

[rick s]

Acclimation doesn't play into this. They have been in my tank for 2 years. I've had the same color temperature bulbs throughout the duration. They faded with the "old" bulbs installed and haven't changed with the new bulbs, which have been installed for over 6 months now.

 

[fishyvet]

Has their flow changed? My pink zoas have become a lot more colorful since moving them into gentle erratic flow. Maybe feeding would perk them up.

 

[twon8]

my guess would be some sort of predator, maybe nudis?
there are quite a few closed polyps in the third pic.
i have found that nudi's tend to stick with one color zoa for a while, then move on to others once they have decimated the original color colony, which would explain the rest of your zoas being fine.

 

[MUCHO REEF]

Question - how old were the bulbs before you changed them?

Did you change the photoperiod?

Nudis won't cause a color shift.

Were you feeding them anything before that you don't feed now?

Were you running a SE MH bulb by chance?

I also noticed that the first two pics are under very intense lighting and the new pics seem to have less intensity.

You wrote, "It's not the bulbs. Dual, 175 watt metal halides, 1-40 watt 50/50 and 1-40 watt actinic. They have all been replaced."

Did you replace them all at the same time?



Mucho Reef